White Collar Crime 1

April Wesley

Crime & Society: Soc 305

White Collar Crime

Professor Tammi Clearfield

January 19, 2009

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White Collar Crime

What is white collar crime exactly? People in this country do not speak of white

collar criminals as “criminals”, yet they have committed very serious crimes. The

majority of white collar criminals do not look like the stereotypical street criminal,

and they do not bring about fear in those who see them. An affluent man, well in

his 50’s, is often carried out of his building in handcuffs after committing his white

collar crime, but that type of criminal does not look scary, so we do not see them so

much as criminals. People see them as a reflection of us. Many white collar

offenders are ordinary people who get into financial difficulty and think they have

found an easy way to get themselves out of that financial crisis. Still, to the average

person, that may seem like a small, harmless crime with no victim. However, these

crimes have much more serious repercussions than the average citizen could

imagine.

White collar crime is generally defined as a crime committed by a person of

respectability and high social status in the course of his occupation (Floyd, 2009).

However, the United States Department of Justice gave a much more detailed

definition for it in 1981: “nonviolent crime for financial gain committed by means

of deception by persons whose occupational status is entrepreneurial, professional,

or semi-professional and utilizing their special occupational skills and

opportunities; also, nonviolent crime for financial gain utilizing deception and

committed by anyone having a special technical and professional knowledge of

business and government, irrespective of the person’s occupation” (Strader, 2002).

Therefore, a banker who uses his “inside intelligence” to steal small sums of money

from bank funds over a period of years is committing a white collar crime because
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he is using his position to deceive the bank for his own financial gain. That is one

example of thousands in the area of white collar crime.

What crimes are considered white collar crimes? Some crimes can be

considered white collar or non-white collar depending on the circumstances

surrounding the crime. Conspiracy, extortion, and obstruction of justice are crimes

that fall into that “iffy” category. Some of the more common white collar offenses

are embezzlement, misappropriation of resources, “creative accounting”, as was

used in Enron, and bank fraud. In addition, there is blackmail, bribery, cellular

fraud, computer fraud, counterfeiting, credit card fraud, forgery, insider trading,

insurance fraud, investment scheming, money laundering, racketeering, and still

many others (National Check Fraud Center, 2006). This listing of typical white

collar crimes could go on for several pages. However, it needs to be made clear that

all court cases relating to white collar crimes are actually criminal cases (Strader,

2002). People may wonder why some of these crimes even get prosecuted since

they are seen as “victimless” in many cases, but even though there is not one clear

cut victim as there is in a single homicide, there are still victims who lose

everything they have ever worked for, and some who even get hurt or lose their

lives. So what is the cost of these types of crimes to society?

The most expensive crime in financial terms is white collar crime (Conklin,

1986). In January of 1977, the New York Times reported that the Joint Economic

Committee of Congress estimated that one third of all financial costs of crime in

the United States could be contributed to white collar crime (Conklin, 1986). Now

that it is twenty-three years later, it is probably safe to guess that their number has

tripled. That is truly scary. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the
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annual cost of white collar crime these days is more than $300 billion (Floyd,

2009). Who pays for these costs? The victimless crime now seems to obtain

unknowing victims. When companies have been robbed from the inside, the

consumers pay higher prices for their products from that company. All the

companies pass their losses to the consumers in the form of rising product prices

(Conklin, 1986). If a construction firm bribes a city inspector to pass their new high

rise apartment building, then the price of rent for the tenants can ease the

foreman’s pocket (Conklin, 1986). There are also many individuals who lose their

retirement, their pensions, their insurance, and everything. Many people who have

worked for a company for ten or more years have all of their investments tied up in

that company, so they are ruined when that company falls. Where is the victimless

crime now?

Physical harm can also result from white collar crime. When a company sells

counterfeit merchandise that has had no safety inspection, they are putting

consumers at risk out of their negligence. If an inspector is bribed to pass the

automobile plant, and he never bothered to check the actual illegal working

conditions, employees could die or get injured from his negligence. A person does

not have to pull a trigger in order to kill someone. In some cases, people involved in

white collar crimes have even lost their lives trying to keep secrets for their

executives, or because they were going to blow the whistle on them. Either way,

white collar crimes can go as far as to leave a body count. Whether these crimes

result in body counts, financial ruin, or just putting a black mark on the country’s

business world and the consumers’ trust in it, there are certainly victims who need

to be vindicated.
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References

Conklin, J. E. (1986). Criminology. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.

Floyd, J.T. (2009). White-Collar Crime: an Overview. John T. Floyd Web Site.

Retrieved January 11, 2009, from http://www.houston-federal-criminal-

lawyer.com.

Keel, R.O. (2008). White Collar Crime: Crimes committed by the affluent in the

course of Normal business activities. Retrieved December 1, 2008, from

http://www.umsl.edu/~keelr/200/wcolcrim.html.

National Check Fraud Center. (n.d.). Types and Schemes of White Collar Crime.

Retrieved January 10, 2009, from http://www.ckfraud.org/whitecollar.html.

Strader, J.K. (2002). Understanding White Collar Crime. Southwestern University

Of Law. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data #0-8205-5531-2.

Retrieved January 10, 2009, from LexisNexis Database.

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White Collar Crime